I’ll simply say this: Australia is more than 25m stories. More than 25m. Each of us can trace our stories back into our own Australia: Indigenous Australia, First Nations Australia. All the stories are important. All stories should be respected.
On Australia Day it is important to do that – understanding the loss, the gains, the successes, the failures, the hardships that were encountered.
Australian stories are unique in this country. But the thing they celebrate most about Australians, despite the hardship, whether that be that of dispossession and the terrible disease and … destruction faced by the First Nations or whether it was the convicts who came, all those stories are important. They’re not competing with each other. They’re just part of who we are.
